Celebrating Sondheim

Anyone that loves musical theater probably loves Stephen Sondheim. One of his best works is the Pulitzer Prize winner Sunday in the Park with George featuring Bernadette Peters and Mandy Patinkin. They reunited nearly 30 years later to celebrate Sondheim's 80th birthday and sang "Move On". There's something about the way this song gets to me that's hard to describe.

St. Anthony Main Crawl- The Butcher Block

One night Claire Schafer and I decided to take a stroll in our St. Anthony Main/NE area for some grub and hopefully a cocktail. Silly of us to think we could waltz right in somewhere without having to wait for a table on a Friday night. Needless to say we came across a bunch of places we "have to go back to when it's not busy". Being the adventureous ones that we are, we decided we would attempt to eat/drink at each bar or restaurant in our area. Perfect idea for some blog posts.

Our First Stop: THE BUTCHER BLOCK
Monday, November 8th 5:50pm-7:00pm

We decided to go right after work as to beat the rush. Low and behold, I was the first customer there that evening. This Italian restaurant is tucked away and hard to see at first, but once inside is nice and cozy. The hostess and owner (maybe?) were really nice to me when I entered and answered all my random questions.

Our Menu for the Evening

2 glasses of the Gaucho Malbec

Bread-white, home-made, dense, hearty

Grilled Octopus (pictured) in lemon and olive oil- better than we thought, not quite as scary, "tastes like chicken AND fish". We both decided we would get this again

Capellini with Asaparus, Salmon, lemon cream sauce- DELICIOUS, various textures and flavors really came out. A little heavy due to cream sauce. Definitely get again

Ravioli with chicken, prosciutto, ricotta, tomato basil sauce- mixture inside of the pasta were flavorful. Claire liked the sauce, but I thought it was a little too simple and overpowered the flavor of the ravioli

RECAP: I enjoyed the small, cozy, quiet feel to it. This is the only location, which is great since it isn't a chain and ruled by corporate regulations. The menu is simple and to the point highlighting the different meals: antipasti, salade, pasta, secondi, dolci. The food was good but not amazing. I would defintiely go back and try a few different items again to get a better feel of the menu.

http://thebutcherblockrestaurant.com/